FIFA Soccer 14 Leaves PES 2014 Standing Still

My original idea for this column was to address whether a professional sports simulation game could survive without extensive player, team and league licenses, and I was timing it for the Tuesday release of both FIFA Soccer 14 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2014.

But then, I played both games, and it was readily apparent the answer was a clear “no.”

I’m not certain if game franchises die with a whimper or a bang, but when I compare FIFA 14 and PES 2014, which both go on sale Tuesday, they’re titles clearly headed in opposite directions. FIFA, from EA Sports, is better than last year’s already-solid game in some very clear and more-subtle ways. Konami’s PES 2014 not only isn’t as good as last year’s game. It’s not nearly as fun, takes several steps backward in playability and appearance and, in my view, is running on fumes.

The comparison between these two games is inevitable, because Konami and EA put them on a crash course, launching on the same day, at the same $60 price for the same platforms. It’s very hard to play them both on the same days and treat the experiences as standalone.

PES 2014

Konami is this year touting Kojima Productions’ “renowned Fox Engine” at the core of PES 2014, along with numerous other advances, including a focus on true ball motion, the introduction of collision physics, the influence of virtual emotion on players and gameplay momentum, better player and stadium animations, improved artificial intelligence and teamplay.

But before I could really try out or appreciate the new features on my Xbox 360, I was struck by its limited options, relatively small number of teams and leagues and clunkily operated menus that looked and felt more like something you’d use with a mouse on your PC than a console. PES 14 is also available for PCs, as well as for the PlayStation 3.

Konami used pre-launch communications and marketing to highlight its licensing of tournaments, not players, and featured a stadium on the PES 2014 game box, after last year putting Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo on the cover.

Indeed, Konami has the rights to the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup, along with several other tournaments from other regions. It also has licenses for a not-insignificant number of club teams in various European and South American leagues and a handful of national teams.

But you can’t dig deep into the Swiss or Saudi Arabian leagues, you can’t find obscure teams from South Africa or play as the Cote d’Ivoire national team. This is not a long list, and even some of the licenses announced for top leagues in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, are matched in FIFA 14.

Stadium graphics were disappointingly unsharp and more 2D than 3D. Close-up animations were strong and comparable to FIFA 14, but their movement was herky-jerky.

I had major issues with the on-field graphics. Animations were cartoonish, details like grass texture and shading were, to my eyes, inferior to last year’s PES version. And default settings had a bewildering array of names, indicators and radar blinking on and off all over the screen making me a tad nauseous and sometimes unable to see what was going on, especially toward the bottom of the screen.

I switched off the power indicator and most of the other distractions, but still didn’t enjoy having white names over every player and occasional white-flaring directional arrows when I made precision moves.

I’m not sure what happened to in-game realism, but it seems to have marched backwards this year in PES 2014. I didn’t notice any snow or rain, and uniforms seemed as bright and shiny at the end of the game as they were at the beginning.

Paradoxically, while players looked less realistic at a distance, they played more like actual soccer players than last year. I did feel the physics of collisions, and I also was able to pull off more one-on-one moves as an attacker than in earlier iterations of PES. The AI seems reasonable. I noticed some fairly realistic moves by computer-controlled players as they missed a slide tackle or banged into me to strip the ball.

Despite introduction of “TrueBall Tech,” I still found passes far too “sticky,” as in hardly ever flubbed by any player. I also found the momentum shifts in the game’s “Heart” function too subtle to really notice in the first couple days of gameplay. The ball’s speed and trajectory were more-realistic than last year, but still more as if I were playing an arcade game than a true simulation.

PES has long been pretty “DIY,” something appreciated by certain players. It allows for the import of stats and teams, stadium edits and creation of your own soundtrack. But this year, PES’s limited licenses, spartan soundtrack and patchy, anodyne in-game commentary have left the game feeling bare and chintzy next to a bold and brassy FIFA 14.

There was also a strong chance to help organize that DIY crowd into a unified online community, but Konami has only inched forward slightly in the social media aspects of PES 2014. Last year, league players could connect to a stats board via a Facebook app.

This year, Konami is promising new, mobile app, which wasn’t yet available for download at the time of this writing. It promises the ability, via patches, to share stats with others who aren’t on their consoles or computers. But it looks to be largely done via a clunky QR code.

FIFA Soccer 14

None of this is to say FIFA 14 is perfect, but it’s definitely an improvement over last year’s game. While PES is taking baby steps with physics this year, FIFA is stepping them up. Players look and play more like their real-world counterparts.

It’s little things, like players turning slightly sideways, as they stick their foot out to try a ball-stripping tackle, that make this year’s game better, or the acrobatic half-stumble, half-turn and recovery by a defender in the box.

Player acceleration is more real this year. You can’t go from zero-to-full-speed with the pull of a sprint trigger and flick of a stick. As on the actual pitch, your player needs to get up a head of steam before hitting his peak speed. Likewise, it’s harder to stop on a dime if you’ve been sprinting. And when you’re facing up to a defender or shielding the ball, it’s easier to make precision cuts and other moves than last year. There’s less of a lag or wasted motion that results in getting the ball stripped away from you. First touches, both good and bad, remain incredibly realistic, and signature moves are still pretty easy to pull off.

Shooting is also different than before. I’m not 100% sure if it’s more-realistic, but different players shoot differently. There are certainly more animations available for shooters, allowing for chip shots off a short stride and off-balance shots. In previous versions of FIFA, it seemed all you could do was control the power or finesse of your shot, i.e. how hard or fast the ball moved. This year, your shots depend as much on the player’s positioning, balance and skill as the ball.

And again, I’m not sure if I’m wowed by sound-effects or physics, but there’s something immensely realistic and satisfying when you hear the thunk of a shoed foot striking a ball. EA says it has improved shot physics to offer more-accurate trajectories, and I found that to be the case. The ball doesn’t always rubber-band off your foot.

Strength also matters greatly in FIFA 14, and that is a welcome injection to the game. A strong and determined defender, like Bayern’s Dante, can fend off a wily Lionel Messi or mobile Neymar without necessarily drawing a whistle for a foul, as often happened last year. The ability to use brawn adds depth and realism to players on both sides of the ball.

Graphics are again excellent. On the audio front, the soundtrack is impressive and enjoyable, featuring multiple big-name tracks. In the booth, Jeff Stelling joins Martin Tyler and Alan Smith on the English-announcing crew for pre-game and stadium announcements. That adds some more interesting bits of dialogue to the game, but the play-by-play and color patter is otherwise similar to 2013.

Licensing clearly sets EA apart from the few rivals it hasn’t blown away in the soccer and other sports simulation arenas. The company’s gigantic war chest has bought it 30 licensed leagues, over 600 clubs and 16,000 recognizable, named players for FIFA 14.

But its the ways EA makes use of those licensed teams, players and leagues that also sets it apart. There are always single player and online multiplayer modes. But co-op seasons mode, career mode, Match Day Online, which pulls actual, real-world stats, trends and injuries into games you play, add depth to FIFA 14. Ultimate Team again promises to be a monster for EA, which wisely made the web app available well ahead of Tuesday’s launch.

I know this, because my son was busy opening card packs on his computer, selling players and assembling an all-German team before the game was even available for our console. I got used to hearing things like, “wow, I got (Edinson) Cavani,” and “I have 70,000 bucks for Ultimate Team,” in the last several days. Your levels and points from FIFA 13 all follow you to the new game.

As with last year, EA has taken the online and community aspects of FIFA very seriously, offering web and mobile apps to let players track stats, view results and leaderboards and buy or sell players without having to turn on their consoles.

And with an eye toward the impending launch of the next-generation Xbox One in November, Ultimate Team rosters, progress, in-game items and coins can be accessed from either console. Ditto for your accumulated club level, experience points, season progress and leader boards. FIFA 14 will also come out for the PlayStation 4 in November, and versions of the game will be available Tuesday for the Nintendo Wii and Windows Pcs.

EA’s FIFA has long been a giant, outselling PES by many multiples, and that trend will likely continue this year. At some point, I wonder whether EA’s spending on soccer licensing, which seems to be returning it a bounty in unit sales, will drive out the competition, as has happened in other sports simulations.

EA says sales of last year’s FIFA 13 topped 14.5 million units, while Konami’s numbers are harder to come by. Vgachartz.com’s numbers show FIFA 13 sales at 13.22 million units versus 1.9 million for PES 13, through Sept. 14.

Commercial success doesn’t necessarily mean one game is better than another. But in this instance, I found that in nearly every measurable area, both on and off the virtual field, PES 2014 is vastly inferior to FIFA 14.

For $60, FIFA 14 is a deep, tightly knit gaming package that offers something for newbies, those who favor single-player action, online, ultimate team and community. Its realism and gameplay is improved from a year ago, and I can see reasons to keep coming back and playing the game. For the same money, it pains me to say that PES 2014 is not nearly in the same league.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.